A demonstration in the Octagon yesterday against the proposed forced closure of more than 100 Western Australian Aboriginal communities was part of a string of protests in eight different countries.
Co-organiser of the Dunedin protest Tania Sharee estimated that, at its peak, about 150 people attended the demonstration.
On April 23, a UN forum on indigenous issues supported a condemnation of the proposed closures put forward by the Kimberley Land Council, an association of Aboriginal people in Kimberley, Western Australia.
Speaker Suzanne Menzies-Culling said the proposal to relocate the communities had nothing to do with them not being ''viable'' - as Western Australia premier Colin Barnett said - and everything to do with mining interests.
''If you want to see what giving the mining industry carte blanche looks like, this is it,'' she said.
She called the proposed relocation ''state violence and ethnic cleansing'', and urged protesters to pressure the New Zealand Government into taking a stand on the issue.
Ms Sharee said the protest was an important ''[recognition of] how wrong it is for anybody to be removed forcibly from their own homes and from their own land'', and that similar removals had happened to Maori communities here in New Zealand.
''We're unifying in peace and supporting our brothers and sisters of Australia,'' she said.
